


Happy Ending (Lost with a Bullet)

by scorpiontales



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Character Study, Episode: s03e03 His Last Vow, Gen, Season/Series 03 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2018-01-08 15:54:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1134618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiontales/pseuds/scorpiontales
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His Last Vow Spoilers!</p><p>Any gunshot wound can be fatal.<br/>Mary deals with the aftermath in a world where it was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy Ending (Lost with a Bullet)

**Author's Note:**

> Uh, hey guys. Long time no see. I tried to keep the summary as cryptic as possible, so here is the full thing.  
> "Sherlock dies when Mary shoots him. Here's the fallout"  
> This is a character study, mostly. So yeah. No beta, sadly, so if anyone wants to take up that profession, I would be thankful. Otherwise, I hope I caught everything. Enjoy!

She didn’t intend to kill him. She calculated the angle just right, made sure that the shot would avoid all vital organs, and factored in the type of gun and bullet she was using. She kept her hand steady to avoid misfiring, she didn’t flinch as shot echoed in the small room. By all accounts, and there were many, the one bullet she fired should have caused internal bleeding, massive blood loss, and shock. Nothing a trained army doctor, one who was just a flight of stairs away, couldn’t handle.

According to the facts, Sherlock Holmes should have suffered massive injuries, but nothing fatal. According to the facts, Sherlock Holmes should have recovered at a stable pace. According to the facts, Mary should have been able to sit next to the hospital bed of her husband’s best friend and explain why he couldn’t tell John.  

According to the facts, Sherlock Holmes should have not died on the operating table.

So when she got the call, right after she had changed back home, she wasn’t expecting John’s broken voice. The pained “he’s gone, Mary. He’s gone.”

Minutes later, after telling John that she would be at the hospital as soon as possible, she sat down at the kitchen table. She reached for the flash drive that she kept inside her pocket, rubbed the initials with her thumb. Probibility stated that Sherlock Holmes should have lived.

She sighed. Who was she kidding? She had never been a lucky woman.

***

 

When she was a recruit, they stuffed information into her like there was no time to lose. Whole operations were covered in the span of minutes. Fighting styles were taught seconds before they were expected to be put into use.  Gun training, however, was taught carefully, each method and practice carefully explained. She could remember assembling makeshift weapons, could remember her first kill shot.

One thing they taught her stuck out. In her early days of training, she had hit the knee of the paper target and cursed up a storm. The male recruits were ahead of her. The trainer had approached, asking her what was wrong.

“I was aiming to kill,” she had said, glaring at the target across the field. The instructor smiled.

“Any gun wound can be fatal.”

***

The funeral was painful.

John gave the speech, his voice breaking at some parts. She walked up to stand beside him, clutching his hand as he worked his way through his speech.

There wasn’t a dry eye in that graveyard. Sherlock’s parents, lovely people, bawled. Mycroft Holmes stood under his umbrella, his face impassive, but wet with tears. Molly Hooper and Lestrade were leaning on each other for support.

She couldn’t manage to force her tears to come. She wondered, halfheartedly, if she had the right to them anyway.

***

Her first kill was a drug lord working a cartel.

Her last kill was supposed to be a diplomat in the East whose youngest child saw him fall to the floor.

In her freelancing days, she got herself through jobs by the same mantra. _This is the last one. The last kill. The last time_. Eventually, she decided to go through with it, taking a name from an old grave.

Throwing the gun into the Thames seemed sloppy, but she had no other choice. She couldn’t keep it in the house; John would find it eventually. So into river the gun went, out of sight from any cameras.

The diplomat was supposed to be the last one. Then CAM was supposed to be the last one. Now Sherlock was supposed to be the last one.

Old habits died hard.

***

Everyone was looking for the shooter.

John helped out, Mary tagging along to pull him in the wrong direction when needed. The whole yard was on the effort, interviewing Magnussen every chance they could get. Whenever she noticed a CCTV camera, she could picture Mycroft behind it, seeking out whoever had murdered his little brother.

She knew she was going to be caught, eventually. Magnussen would spill when she could no longer pay the increasing sums of money he wanted from her. Mycroft would stumble on an old intelligence file someday, and she would vanish overnight. John would put it together in the future; he was a smart man. Her story was never going to have a happy ending.

That possibility went out the window when Sherlock never woke up.

***

Sometimes she dreamed the scene differently. Where she didn’t shoot anyone. Where Magnussen spilled her most prized secrets, John left her and she ended up dying in a tiny room in some foreign country.

It would be preferable to reality.

***

“It’s a girl.”

John beamed, perhaps for the first time in months. Mary watched the screen, trying to smile with him.

“Guess we need to think about names,” John said, a little breathless. “Any ideas?”

She shook her head. John licked his lips, he did that when he was nervous she had noticed, and squeezed her hand tighter.

“How about Sherlock? As a middle name, I mean. I don’t want her to get bullied.”

She closed her eyes. If she gave her daughter this name, Sherlock would never stop haunting her dreams. His expression of confusion as the bullet hit home would be seared into her memory every time she heard her daughter’s middle name. The guilt that had already seeped deep into her bones, would work even faster at driving her mad.

She felt like she deserved much worse.

“I don’t see why not.”

***

“Any gunshot wound can be fatal.”

Mary wished differently. 


End file.
